respect to particular individuals in all professions, and cannot be fairly adduced as an argument against special preparation for those not so highly favored by nature.

5. THE TEACHER MUST KNOW HOW TO MANAGE AND GOVERN A SCHOOL.-Discipline gives power. One hundred well-drilled soldiers are worth more on a battle-field than several hundred raw recruits. The captain of a vessel, the superintendent of a factory, the commander of an army, must acquire professional skill by discipline; knowledge of the principles of school-management and school-government, and skill in applying them, must be acquired in the same way. Progress can be hoped for in teaching only as teachers make use of the experience of their predecessors as a starting-post for their own investigations. Where wise and good men tell us how to avoid falling into errors, it is great folly to shut our ears to their advice. Nor can natural aptitude for managing and governing a school be relied upon, any more than natural aptitude for practicing medicine or law can be relied upon in those professions.

Some additional reasons will be given in favor of special preparation for teachers. They belong to a different class from the preceding, but are scarcely less convincing:

1. SPECIAL PREPARATION ON THE PART OF TEACHERS IS NECESSARY TO CONSTITUTE TEACHING A PROFESSION.. If scholarship is the only requisite for the teacher, then all scholars are teachers, or may properly become such whenever the prospects of success iv

more desirable fields of effort become discouraging. Teaching would thus be a kind of common ground open to all, and admitting the limitation of no professional lines. As a consequence, teachers would attach little importance to, and have little interest in, their work; there would be little unity of effort among them, and a general want of that class feeling, or esprit du corps, which is always essential to the building up of any profession, and without which teaching can neither attain the rank among the professions hoped for by teachers, nor meet in the value of its results the reasonable expectations of the public.

2. SPECIAL PREPARATION ON THE PART OF TEACHERS IS NECESSARY TO MAKE TEACHING A PERMANENT BUSINESS. At present no other kind of business is subject to so many changes as teaching. It is certain that of those who have charge of our Common Schools one year, not more than two-thirds, in some places not more than one-half, remain to take charge of them the succeeding year. Such frequent changes do not take place in any other pursuit, and they are partly, at least, accounted for in the teachers' profession by the opinion which is held by many that "anybody" can teach. The consequence of this opinion is that thousands are still found occupying the position of teacher who never intend to become permanent teachers, but who teach merely to replenish their exhausted funds, to enjoy opportunities for self-improvement, to put in time while waiting to engage in some other kind of business, and are restless under the

irksome necessity that confines them to the schoolroom. A well-taught school by any of these classes of persons must be an exception to the rule. They have made no special preparation to become teachers, and they do not intend that either their livelihood or their reputation shall depend upon their success as such; and actuated by none of the usual motives that prompt to earnest effort, they cannot be expected to evince much interest or exhibit great skill in teaching. In proportion as men expend time, labor, and money in fitting themselves for a particular kind of business will be their indisposition to abandon it, and never until the public recognize the truth that teachers require special preparation, will communities be freed from the evils consequent upon the frequent change of teachers, and the profession of teaching relieved of the horde of intruders who now disgrace it and reduce to a very low amount the remuneration i affords.

3. EFFORTS FOR THE SPECIAL PREPARATION OF TEACHERS HAVE BEEN ATTENDED WITH SATISFACTORY RESULTS.-Prussia has tried the experiment of training teachers upon a large scale, and both government and people think it has been successful. Austria, France, and England have their schools for teachers, and find them essential to the well-working of their systems of education. Such men as Dinter, Cousin and Brougham have advocated the establishment of Normal Schools. These schools have also been established in many of our American States; and though they have encountered much opposition,

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they have everywhere met with signal success. public have seen teachers who have made special preparation at Normal Schools work by the side of those who have not made such preparation; with the shrewdness characteristic of our people a comparison of their respective merits has been made, and the conclusion is best expressed in the liberal patronage which such schools receive and the hundreds of thousands of dollars which are annually expended for their support.

The reasons just stated are sufficient to show that teachers require special preparation, and their statement seems appropriately to introduce a work on Teaching which aims to aid in that preparation. If any teacher, or any one who designs to become a teacher feels the want of the preparation which it has been shown teachers need, he is invited to study the subject as presented in the following pages; and it is hoped he will not only find that which will increase his ability to discharge the duties incumbent upon the teacher, but that which will elevate his idea of the importance and dignity of the teachers' profession.

CONDITIONING PRINCIPLES.

Human perfection is the grand aim of all well directed education. The teacher has ever present with him his ideal man whose perfections he would realize in the children committed to his care, as the sculptor would realize the pure forms of his imagina tion in the rough marble that lies unchiseled before him. Embraced in this great end of education there are several subordinate ends, that of gaining knowledge, that of attaining discipline, that of lifting up the mind to the contemplation of pure beauty, truth, and excellence, and that of fitting ourselves to perform in the best manner possible all our duties to man and to God.

Granted, that this is a true conception of the end of all education, and the object-matter which must form the foundation for a system of teaching, will comprehend: 1st. The nature of the thing to be operated upon, or educational capabilities; 2d. The nature of the instrumentalities which may be used in operating upon it, or educational means; 3d. The manner of performing the operation, or educational methods. A system of agriculture is likewise divisible into three parts; that which treats of the soil, that which treats of the means of fertilizing or working it, and that which treats of the methods of applying the means to the desired end. A system

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